Millie went once with Stella to the Tansy Patch, but after the first visit, she would not go again. "It's boring there," she sighed. "I don't care a whit about drawing or painting and it's all you and Mr. Frederick talk about. And it's strange—the way he looks at you. It gives me shivers. Stella, I think Mr. Frederick likes you very much—but under that, I think he doesn't like you in a way—or else he re-re-resentients you. I don't know why he would, but he does."

Stella bristled at this slander of her new friend. For she and Mr. Frederick were getting to be fast friends—she found an excuse to go over to the Tansy Patch (which was exactly what an artist's house should look like) nearly every day. Mr. Frederick had loaned her books and yesterday he had presented her with a set of oil paints of her very own. He had built a long white verandah onto the back of his house, looking out toward the sea, and every afternoon he and Stella took their easels out and painted there, companionably. Stella was translating the sketch of Mother in the kitchen into oils, and Mr. Frederick was working on an abstract of the sunrise. It was nothing like the sunrise—only great swaths of color—no sea or sand or boats or sky—but at the same time, when you looked at it, there was no denying that it was a sunrise—or at least, the spirit of the sunrise.

It was a nice friendship, but all the same, it was not an entirely comfortable one. For the first thing, it must be kept secret. Aunt Elizabeth had learned of the girls' visit to the great Maurice Hayward and she had almost had, as Millie would have put it, a coronary. Over the years Elizabeth Murray had resigned herself to the fact that her niece must be a writer—but her grand-niece did not have to be an artist. Why, artists were even more scandalous than writers! They lived in Paris, wore eccentric clothes, and then there were the question of the—the—unclothed subjects of paintings. (Aunt Elizabeth could not even bring herself to say the word 'nudes.') And most paintings didn't look like anything nowadays—just a lot of little shapes and blocks and cubes and stripes and Lord-knows-what-else. And that Van Gogh fellow had cut off his ear.

So Stella kept her visits to Mr. Frederick secret. She did not lie, exactly—she just let everyone believe that she played at the Burnley House with Millie in the afternoons. If Dean Priest had taken his daughter more frequently to the Catholic churches on the Continent she might have heard the term 'lie of omission,' but he hadn't and so Stella's conscience did not trouble her very much at all.

Secondly, Mr. Frederick often said disagreeable things about Stella's paintings. Oh, he was very complimentary—but he had a habit of zooming in on the things that even she knew were not as good as they should be. "You are going to have to learn to draw hands sometime," he said, his brows lowered over his blue eyes. "This is getting ridiculous, Stella. I think you'll find that very few people go through life with their hands tucked neatly behind their backs, out of sight. You can show a lot in hands—a restless tension—a languid peace—the power a beautiful hand is not to be underestimated."

So Stella began showing hands in her work. At which Mr. Frederick exclaimed, "Lord, I said hands, not catcher's mitts!"

It was very hard to please him, Stella thought, but worth it when she managed it. "You don't have any problem with elbows," said Mr. Frederick gruffly, and Stella lived on the compliment for days.

And then—last of all—she had to admit that Millie was a little right. Not that Mr. Frederick was resentful toward her, but that sometimes, when she happened to look up, she caught his eyes on her, and something in them was a little sad. Stella thought that perhaps there was a tragedy in his life to make him look at her that way; perhaps he had lost a little child of his own, and that was why he was so kind to her. She asked him about it, once—if he had any children. It seemed that he should, if he didn't. What a jolly type of father he would make!

"No children," said Mr. Frederick, briefly. "Except the pictures of the ones I carry around in my head with me. They look very much like you—except that their mouths point up, not down, at the corners."

Mr. Frederick's own mouth pointed up at the corners.

Stella could not fathom what he meant.

xxxxxxxxxx

On the days that she didn't go to see Mr. Frederick, Pierrot read to them in the afternoons. They had worked their way through Alice, which Stella had read before, and Treasure Island, which she had not. She adored it so much that she began a series of sketches titled 'Adventure on the High Seas.' She kept them secret, so that nobody could see that the fiercest pirate of all was a tall, dark man with stubble peppering his cheeks, and one—the other was hidden behind a patch—very blue eye. His minions included a red-haired, freckled boy-pirate with a peg-leg—another with blond curls and very unpirateish glasses—and two piratettes with their hair kilted up under bright handkerchiefs. She lobbied for their next book to be something just as swashbuckling.

But Millie put her foot down. Her feminine little spirit had wilted under all the swabbing of decks and hunting for lost booty. She wanted something sweet—A Little Princess, or The Secret Garden—books that Stella thought insipid. Besides—she did not think she would like very much to hear a story about girls who had lost their fathers—her own loss was too raw for that.

Pierrot had the perfect solution. An old favorite—mellow and beautiful—but still funny, and full of the right amount of adventure, and character. He brought the beaten-up copy down to the orchard the next day and the four young people—Jack Kelly had decided to come back—spent the day in the Applegath garden, with the scent and magic of Peggy Applegath's roses.

"I love this book," said Stella, at the end of the fifth chapter. "The Moral of the Rose—it is the perfect title. You can learn something from a rose, I think. From anything beautiful, really. Oh, Pierrot, won't you let me take the book home overnight? I promise I won't read ahead—but I'd like to show it to Mother. I think she would enjoy it."

Millie started, and darted a glance at her brother. He blinked back, amazedly. He had never supposed the Stella did not know—he had just assumed that she had read it before—he thought her sighs and exclamations were over old familiar, beloved passages.

"Stella," he said, a little oddly. "Aunt Emily…your mother…"

"Your mother wrote this book," piped up Millie in a shrill voice. Her eyes were very wide.

"My mother!" Stella laughed. "Oh, what a joke! You're teasing me. If my mother had written a book—this book—I surely would have known." But when she laughed again, it was not as bright.

Pierrot handed her the book and there it was: the title, in gold letters and inch high. THE MORAL OF THE ROSE. And under that, by E.B. Starr.

"What?" Stella quavered. "What—how?"

No one seemed to know what to say.

"Mother never said." Stella's voice was small. "She never said—that she'd written a book. She—she's written some lovely fairy-tales for me—but I just supposed it a—a hobby of sorts, a little like crochet. I—I wonder why she never mentioned it." She kept looking down at the cover, as though the next time she looked, it would not be there, but it was. E.B. Starr, for Emily Byrd Starr; Starr had been mother's maiden name. It was why Stella was called Stella. "I wonder why she would keep such a secret—from me."

Pierrot put his arm around her thin, shaking shoulders.

"Ask her," he said, wisely. "Let her explain."

xxxxxxxxxx

Stella was very quiet all through dinner. So quiet that Emily wondered if something wasn't wrong with the child. Usually Stella was full of chatter. Could it be that she was sick—a summer cold? Her cheeks were very flushed—heat stroke? She wanted to ask, but whenever she opened her mouth Stella glared across the table at her, a little accusingly.

Aunt Elizabeth noticed it and said, "That is very impolite."

"So is keeping secrets," muttered Stella.

"Dear?" blinked Aunt Laura, her eyes large and confused. None of them were used to Stella talking back.

"I think I'll go up to my room." Stella rose, stiffly. "I'm not very hungry, it seems."

Emily paced in the parlour until she could not take it any longer. She felt sure her daughter's remark had been directed at her. Could it be that Stella had—had overheard—something? Something about—well, anything? She remembered well the way she had felt when she had heard Aunt Nancy and Caroline Priest talking about Ilse's mother. Blair Water might have changed a lot since those days but gossips never changed at all. She wondered if the girl might have heard something—something.

Emily could take it no longer. She climbed the stairs to Stella's room.

She did not have to wait long to find out what the matter was. Stella was sitting up in bed, and when Emily opened the door she held up the book—the green-covered book—Emily knew it right away for what it was. Her book—her darling book. Oh, she remembered how proud she had been when she had seen it—her name on it—and the imprint of Wareham's on the back. She had thought, with a youthful delight, that it would be the first in a long and illustrious career. Instead, it had been the only. Emily sat down hard in the chair by the window and eased the door closed with her foot. She pressed her hands against her burning eyes.

"Why, Mother?" asked Stella, beseechingly. "Why did you never tell me?"

Emily's thoughts whirled around in her head and her heart beat painfully in her chest. How could she explain to the girl? She decided to make her voice very light, and urged a smile to come to her face. She almost managed it.

"So you've discovered my secret," she said, almost teasingly. "My little youthful indiscretion—my 'book.'" The quotations in her voice were evident.

"Don't," said Stella unsmilingly. "Don't pooh-pooh this, Mother. You aren't Aunt Elizabeth."

Emily reflected that was true. She grinned, despite herself—and the strange coolness between mother and child was broken. Emily decided she would tell the truth, instead—or at least, something like the truth.

"I was a writer," Emily said, folding her hands over her knees. "I wrote that book when I was twenty-three—it was published when I was twenty-four." In the flickering candlelight she looked like the girl she had been. "But it wasn't my first endeavor, Stella—I'd been writing my whole life. Since I was your age—before. It was my 'Alpine Path'—you remember, the poem I taught you…"

The Alpine Path—so hard, so steep

That leads to heights sublime,

Stella quoted.

"Exactly," Emily murmured. "Just as your art is, to you. Oh, darling girl, I shall never forget the day I held that book in my hands for the first time. I felt the Alpine Path was mine that day. But I never consider that, once having climbed it, I would have to find a way to stay there, at the summit—to establish it as my own. It slipped away from me, Stella, and I found myself at the base of the hill looking up, again—as though it had never been climbed at all."

Stella's hand found her mother's and covered. "What happened?" she wondered.

Emily regarded her daughter and wondered how much she should tell her. Stella was eleven—but it was an old-soul eleven—she could understand things most children couldn't. All the same, she was young—and she had adored her father so entirely. Once again Emily decided she would tell the truth—but it would only be a version of the truth. She could not hurt her daughter anymore than she had been hurt already.

"Your father and I were married," she said. "And there wasn't any time, really, to write after that. I was a newly-wed—it wouldn't have been right for me to devote so much time to my work, when your father needed me—wanted me—to be with him. He was not like us, Stella, in that way—I don't think he understood the need to create, the desire to work—and I think he was a little jealous," she tempered, gently.

"And then came the war. It was even harder to find the time to write anything. The war seemed so close to us. I remember going out and looking down the mountain at the first battles of Isonzo, and the things I saw there could not be translated into any human language. The war lasted for so long, and I think it killed a part of me that believed in hope and good things—for a time. I did write—on the sly—but the things I was writing, scared me.

"And then the war was over," Emily mused, her eyes growing large and far away. "We were all expected to go back to our lives, just like that—but as you may expect, it wasn't as easy as you'd think. That was in '17—and in '18, you came. Oh, it isn't your fault, don't look that way—but a wife—of an invalid—and the mother—even of the sweetest baby—doesn't have much time for anything else. And I'd forgotten, Stella—I'd forgotten my art. Or else it had left me."

"How horrible," Stella breathed. It was the first time that she thought of her own talent as a gift—she had never considered the idea that one day she might be without it. How would it feel, if it went? Just the thought made her feel strangely empty and bereft.

"You know the rest," Mother said. "Dean's health became poorer with every year—we were always moving, visiting doctors—my editors and publishers had quite forgotten about me—the world wanted a different kind of story, and I didn't know how to write it. Don't look so sad, Elfkin—I don't miss it very much."

"You're lying," Stella pronounced. "Mother—you miss it very much. I can tell."

"You're right," Emily confessed. "I did—I do. But I am writing again—a very little—just verbal sketches, really. Not finished paintings—nothing like that. But something—perhaps I will find my way back to the foot of the Alpine Path again. And Stella," Emily's voice broke, "I want you to know—that I wouldn't trade the years I spent with you and your father for anything. It might have cost me something—but if I had not lived them, oh—how much I really would have missed!"

Stella threw herself into her mother's arms.

"Oh, it's nice to have anything out in the open," she sighed. "I don't like there to be any secrets between us, Mother dearwums."

She felt her mother stiffen and pull away a little. When Emily spoke again her voice was casual—too casual.

"I don't know," she said. "I think a person must have some secrets from even those they love the best—even if they are as close as you and I—if one wants to call one's soul her own. But no, dear—there isn't anything else—"

She was lying again—or else she was not telling the truth. Stella could see that. But she did not call it out. For she had secrets, too.

After all—she had not told Mother about Mr. Frederick.